Public service plots steps into Asia

The
Ken Henry
white paper, Australia in the Asian Century, put up quite a clear signpost for the changes required of the Australian Public Service if it is to lift its Asia-related capabilities.

On the practical side, as reported, it has set a 12-month deadline for the public service to produce, presumably from existing resources, a strategy led jointly by the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet,
Ian Watt
, and the Public Service Commissioner,
Steve Sedgwick
.

That’s a good thing. It is far better to let the bureaucracy do the work, if only to avoid the flummery of a consultant being used at a cost of several million dollars.

As always, these things are easier said than done.

If the current or next government doesn’t like what they produce, it can always change it but the work won’t be wasted. It’s a no-brainer that engagement in Asia is and will remain vital to Australia’s concerns, however politicians dress it up.

(It is also clear state governments will continue to do much of the heavy lifting, which is recognised in the paper, if not as comprehensively as the states would like.)

Watt and Sedgwick’s strategy will no doubt harness further developments in capability that they believe are essential for a modern, flexible federal public service.

Watt, in his recent speech to the Institute of Public Administration, Australia, emphasised the need for continuous improvement rather than periodic landmark overhauls of the public service.

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The aim, the paper said, would be to improve the integration of policy analysis, problem solving and implementation capabilities across domestic and international matters.

It would also embed practices to ensure international and domestic policy outcomes were considered together while developing policies.

As Australia became more integrated with its neighbours, the lines between domestic and international policy were increasingly blurred.

“Asia-relevant capabilities will be required right across the public service, including among the leadership of the APS and beyond traditional ‘external facing’ institutions."

Australian officials would need to understand how Australia’s domestic policy objectives intersected and were shaped by global and regional factors, and how those objectives could be achieved by looking out to the region and beyond.

Service delivery and regulatory agencies were likely to require increased cross-cultural awareness.

Policy officers would require a more sophisticated understanding of the region, as well as an Asian language proficiency, to ensure governments were better engaged with the region; could collaborate with Asian nations on policy issues of mutual interest; were better able to link domestic, regional and international aspects of policy advice and program delivery; and were better able to support business and the broader community in regional opportunities.

The paper set a target for a third of the top 200 APS leaders to have “deep experience and knowledge of Asia" by 2025. But how many?

One of Watt and Sedgwick’s first tasks will surely be to find out exactly what Asia-related capacities already exist, both active (agencies engaged in Asia-related work) and dormant (educational qualifications, Asian language and other skills that exist but are not being used).

To date, the Australian Public Service Commission isn’t able to provide a clear statistical picture, but will no doubt make the best use of its Australian Public Service Employment Database and next year’s employee census to find out.

The white paper says the building blocks for a more Asia-capable public service are already in place, with the commission partnering with agencies to develop the fundamental skills that would underpin it.

Other agencies already have exchange and collaboration programs with regional counterparts, including Defence, and some partnerships with the Australian National University, while the Australia and New Zealand School of Government earned praise for its collaborative, peer-to-peer leadership programs with China and Indonesia. From next year, it will also run one with India.

It also outlined the evolution of Australia’s relations with the region from federation and summarised the architecture of bilateral relationships with China, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

Once the workforce data and other evidence is collected and analysed, a clear picture should emerge about the current state of play that will provide a strong foundation for a resilient strategy.